Morning Commute – 12/13

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The Morning Commute is an occasional look at meetings or other #BikeSpecific discussions and stories happening in the District. It also looks at interesting bike ideas or concepts from other places across the globe that could possibly work here. Again, this isn’t journalism, just fun.

Today’s commute includes:

  • The Capital Trails Coalition is something big
  • Florida starts with “F”, which is also the grade that someone gave on initial plans to revitalize it
  • Women are less likely to bike for many reasons – including because many men are jerks
  • Happy Friday the 13th

The Capital Trails Coalition gets noticed. The Sunday Washington Post printed an in depth article on the work of the CTC, who wants to grow our regional trails network to over 900 miles at a cost of a $1 billion. To put that into perspective, Florida estimates that at about $1o million per mile for a new four-lane highway, without land acquisition costs or bridges, you’d get about 128 miles of asphalt that moves cars and trucks. Washington Post

Data from the fitness tracking company Strada states that women “feel more uncomfortable” biking to work than men. The article states a few factors that lead to this conclusion and site studies that point to a lack of safe, protected infrastructure that makes biking in cities, suburbs, and rural areas less attractive to use.

Jonathan Maus, editor and publisher of BikePortland, stated that other factors include inadequate changing facilities, verbal harassment while riding, intimidation in bike shops and other bike zones, and expectations around appearance in the workplace can discourage women from riding to and from work. Mashable

Florida Avenue NE Open House. https://www.floridaaveproject.com/ @DDOTDC Held an Open House December 10 from 6-8 pm at the New Samaritan Baptist Church. The purpose of the open house was to review 65 percent designs and data for Florida Avenue and 30 percent designs for Florida Ave and New York Ave (Dave Thomas Circle). Also, Bishop M.V. Kelsey thinks that having an open house is also a great way to get people into church.

@FixCircle has a good general synopsis of What DDOT unveiled:

DDOT is extremely keen on avoiding poor “level of service” for vehicles. I’m unaware of any similar metric they use for pedestrians, cyclists, & transit users. It shows in designs like the ones presented today—if there was one, the grade would be an F,. at important key points.— Fix Dave Thomas Circle (@FixCircle) December 11, 2019

Facts about Union Station. From DCist by way of @HandlebarsDC, there are 10 things you may have not known about Union Station. One of those things is the planned expansion of Union Station involves more than you realize, including more bike infrastructure. DCist

Group files lawsuit against park service for allowing e-bikes on non-motorized trails. According to Bicycle Retailer, groups such as the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility have filed one of two recent lawsuits in the District of Columbia District Court against the National Park Service for allowing e-bikes on non-motorized trails. Bicycle Retailer

In this week in “It’s the bicyclist’s fault”, editorials from Minneapolis says that it must be bicyclists who are distracted and continue to get themselves run over and in the bay area, its the bicyclists who don’t stop at stop sign who are putting their lives at risk.

Mayor versus Council on Street Safety. @GordonAChaffin continues to do good work regarding the apparent tension between the Mayor and the Council regarding how aggressive the District implements fundamental changes in street design and management. The Hill is Home

While your at it, consider supporting Gordon’s blog, Street Justice, to get actual honest-to-goodness reporting and analysis regarding bicycling in the District and the region. It’s much better than this BS.

Maryland’s transportation secretary resigns. Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn, who proposed major highway expansion under the governorship of Larry Hogan (R) stated that he will resign.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey (D) was enthusiastic about Rahn’s resignation. The councilmember said that the Hogan administration was focused on “car-centric transportation planning and that Secretary Rahn had “an absolute disinterest in growing our population in our city sustainably and equitably through real and robust investment in public transit.”

Mr. Ranh will be replaced by Greg Slater, director of the State Highway Administration. Ragina C. Ali, a spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, states that Slater’s appointment suggests that Maryland will continue to focus on road, rather than other alternatives. Baltimore Sun

Top 50 US Cities Ranked by Progress of Urban Sustainability. The District, some how, takes the number one spot with regard to progress to building a more sustainable city. Now, you wouldn’t assume that given the consternation involving Twitter discussion, but apparently, the District scored the highest rate among the top 50 US cities.

According to the article, the 2018 Citizen Centric Cities report defines sustainable urban centers as “places that are planned and managed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact, providing a resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same”.

While the District doesn’t score as highly across all competencies in the US, those go to the usual suspects, Commercial Cafe – a real estate blog, states that the District has “made the most progress”. Commercial Cafe

A reported version DDOT Scoring Matrix was released. It shows how DDOT decided which companies would receive dockless permits for 2020. The only problem is that few people understand how DDOT decided which companies would receive dockless permits for 2020. @Asmall_world

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